Study on the cross-cultural adjustment and application of the Death Anxiety Scale

Abstract

Objective To study on the cross-cultural adjustment and application of the Death Anxiety Scale based on the national culture and establish the Chinese version of this scale.Methods Through cross-cultural adaptation and formal investigation,the Chinese version of Death Anxiety Scale was established.A cross-sectional study was conducted among 450 medical college students and 50 hospice workers with multiple diagnoses to validate the Chinese version of the Templer's Death Anxiety Scale (T-DAS),after 7to 10 days,60 of them were retested.Reliability and validity of the Chinese version of Templer's Death Anxiety Scale (T-DAS)were evaluated according to the data.Results The Chinese version of the Templer's Death Anxiety Scale(T-DAS)was easy to understand.Most respondents finished the whole scale in 5 to10 minutes,and the effective recover rate of the scale was 97.4％.The correlation between the T-DAS and the single item test for the death anxiety was 0.516.Structural equation models and factor analysis displayed good construction of the T-DAS.The internal consistency reliability evaluated by Cronbach'α was 0.71 for the whole 15 items.The retest reliability was 0.831.Conclusions Based on the analysis,the Chinese version of the T-DAS has good reliability and validity,and should be a good instrument for the evaluation of the death anxiety. Key words: Death anxiety; Cross-cultural adaptation; Scale; Reliability; Validity